The deals, which include selling cancer drugs to Novartis AG for as much as $16 billion and buying Novartis’s vaccine business for $7.1 billion, also help shift the conversation about Glaxo away from the eruption of bribery investigations in China, Poland and the Middle East.

As part of Tuesday’s transactions, Glaxo and Novartis are forging a $10.9 billion consumer-products company, to be majority-owned by Glaxo, that will sell a range of health aids from Sensodyne toothpaste to Excedrin headache pills. With the moves, Glaxo cements its place among the global leaders in vaccines, with 29 percent of the market, and will run the largest seller of over-the-counter drugs.

Sandoz, the generic drug division of Novartis, operates a plant in Broomfield with about 600 employees. Novartis spokeswoman Julie Masow said the plant “is not affected” by the Novartis deal announced Tuesday.

“Strategically, it seems to make a whole lot of sense,” said Mark Clark, an analyst for Deutsche Bank AG in London. “After a couple of years where they have tended to undershoot expectations, this will be seen as a positive move. It’s hard to pick this apart in a negative way.”

The Novartis deals mean that 38 percent of London-based Glaxo’s sales will come from consumer goods and vaccines, using 2013 revenue figures, up from 24 percent in 2007. Unlike prescription drugs, those products aren’t as vulnerable to expiring patents or to governments unwilling to accept price increases.

“It gives us much more of a durable cash flow profile in the future,” Witty said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Glaxo spent the last weeks answering questions about bribery allegations in Poland, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.

In July, Chinese authorities announced an investigation into allegations the company’s sales representatives bribed doctors, hospitals and officials.

Denver Post staff writer Steve Raabe contributed to this report

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